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Beautiful Wardway Homes

by: Montgomery Ward & Co.

Publication date: 1930
Topics: Montgomery Ward & Company, Gordon Van Tine Company, Wardway Homes, trade catalog, house plans, floor plans, blueprints, house designs, domestic architecture, prefabrication, dwellings, homes, residences
Publisher: Montgomery Ward & Co.
Collection: ccchppdigitalarchive; clatsopcountyhistoricalsociety; americana; globallibraries
Contributor: Clatsop County Historical Society
Language: English
Item Size: 412.2M

Paperback catalog with glossy magazine-like covers. The front cover is very colorful, with a large color illustration of a yellow house in the center. There are 4 other houses on the front cover, one in each corner: the Webster, the Sovereign, the Kelton, and the Maywood. At the bottom of the front cover is a purple rectangle with the title and company information written in black type. The back cover is also in full color and has a top half page illustration of a businessman in a suit standing in front of the Salem house design, pointing to a paper that says "Friendly Personal Service." There are six "Reasons Why We Save You Money on a Wardway Home" listed in black ink along the left edge of the back cover. At the very bottom is a red, white, blue, and yellow border that says, "Montgomery Ward & Co." The booklet is in relatively good condition, but the spine has several tears in several places. Size: 8.5" x 11"

From antiquehomestyle.com: "Unfortunately, there is not a great deal of knowledge about the history of Montgomery Ward's kit home business. Like a number of similar companies, they began selling materials, lumber, hardware, and plans before World War I. By 1922, they began selling under the Wardway name and were closely affiliated with the Gordon Van Tine Company, which manufactured their homes for them. Many of their homes are identical to those offered by Gordon Van Tine.

The Wardway "ready-cut" kits were sold until 1931. The Depression years took their toll. Much of the profit in the kit home business came from the mortgage financing that accompanied the sale, not the materials or the house itself. According to the research conducted by Dale Wolicki, an architectural historian and expert on Gordon Van Tine, New Deal mortgage programs through the Federal Housing Administration allowed home owners to refinance existing mortgages at a lower rate. By paying off their Montgomery Ward contracts, homeowners effectively cut the profits that allowed the company to pursue the business. Though other manufacturers were able to survive, Montgomery Ward terminated their kit home business as a result.

For now, we hope you enjoy some of the content from our c. 1930 catalog, which was probably the last catalog Montgomery Ward produced."